Obama Appointee Calls For Ending Free Speech On Internet

At a speech for students at the University of Communism – Berkeley, former Obama appointee and ex-head of the Federal Election Commission chairwoman. Ann M. Ravel told attendees that political speech must be controlled on social media. Later in the speech, she also called for federal regulations against so-called “fake news.”

Speaking at the meeting labeled “Future of Democracy,” Ravel argued the proliferation of “fake news” and political advertising on platforms like Facebook influenced elections, including Mrs. Clinton’s. She warned that the lack of disclosure by the creators of these campaigns was becoming a huge problem.

Ravel told the mush-minds in attendance: “We know that there’s a lot of campaigning that’s moved to the internet, whether it’s through fake news or just outright advertising and there is almost no regulation of this, very little. And so that the disclosure that we expect as to who is behind campaigns is not going to exist soon.” She went on to say: “Some people are even predicting that by 2020 most of the advertising is going to move from television to the internet, and I think this is a serious issue that requires a lot of discussion.”

Apparently, Ms. Ravel has her own interpretation of the First Amendment of the Constitution. You know, the one that calls for Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech. At least she is consistent, during her term as the chairwoman of the FEC, Ravel previously called for only, right-leaning websites like the Drudge Report to be “regulated,” and blamed hostile responses towards her proposals on “misogyny.” She claimed it was within the purview of the Federal Election Commission to oversee internet political activities, including the airing of political viewpoints by anyone.

In other words, Ms. Ravel attempted to slant the news that was allowed to be posted on the internet and Tweeter to only viewpoints that agreed with her beliefs. In 2015, the Democrat party, at the behest of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton tried, but failed to expand the FEC’s regulatory powers to cover social media posts and other forms of political speech on the Internet.

Currently, these posts and “news stories” are not subject to the same scrutiny as political advertisements on radio, television and print media. There is a very good reason for that, these posts are in fact the “opinion of free American citizens” and as such are protected by the constitution. But at that time, liberal watchdogs like Mark Zuckerburg complained to the FEC with allegations that (then-probable) Republican presidential candidates like Jeb Bush and Martin O’Malley were skirting finance campaign laws. Conservatives managed to stall the vote, fearing that the additional powers would chill political speech on the Internet, which is exactly why our founder installed the First Amendment.

But since that time, Ravel has doubled down in her efforts to restrict free speech. At UC Berkeley, Revel claimed that companies like Facebook have “no real knowledge” of who sponsors political viewpoint posts on their platforms. Revel told students: “I think this is a really serious issue that we need to address.”